Or we follow the instructions right up until it gets difficult or frustrating. Don’t lie. We’ve all been there.

If you truly want to get the results/success promised you by some online course, ebook, etc…you need to follow the instructions laid out for you.

Hint: we often quit following instructions when it becomes not fun. Use this to your advantage. When a particular course, method, strategy, becomes tedious, not-fun, and difficult…that’s a sign other people will likely quit there. But not you. Do the work laid out in front of you.

Only then can you complain when you don’t get the results you seek.

2 – Invaluable income report you must check out.

Rosemarie no longer publishes her own income reports on BusyBudgeter.com.

Why? It doesn’t make sense for her audience anymore. Instead, she is publishing other people’s income reports in their place…and provides helpful feedback and advice.

Seriously, you need to check it out. It’s a super short read, and her feedback is gold.

3 – How to craft the perfect pitch email to influencers

First, I have a more-useful-than-the-internet guest post covering this topic…including walk-throughs, outreach templates, etc., on Eden Fried’s site. (It’ll be available mid-August, so sign up for her newsletter or join her FB community to be notified).

At some point, we need contact with influencers (aka. people in our niche with more success than us, reach, authority, etc).

“hey Tim Ferriss! Will tweet my latest blog post?”

“hey John Lee Dumas! Will you feature my travel blog on your podcast?”

“hey Seth Godin! Will you sponsor my latest ebook?”

We’ve all been there. Some of us more than others.

Rosemarie is one of these influencers (she actually has an assistant to screen emails for her. I’m jealous), and she gave some great rules for cold-emailing these individuals.

1 – They don’t actually care about you.

I don’t mean they’re horrible, unfriendly people…they just don’t know you, and they have their own priorities! (We all do, I hope). Asking them for unsolicited favors that offer them nothing in return is…well, rude. You shouldn’t be surprised when they don’t respond to your email.

You need to ask yourself…

2 – What’s in it for them?

Whatever you’re pitching…if there’s nothing in it for them, you’re likely to be ignored or denied.

Here are some things online influencers tend to enjoy getting in return for helping you out:

Exposure they might not otherwise have

Site traffic and email subscribers (it’d have to be substantial)

A good chance to promote a product/service/book launch

The chance to help a hungry, hard-working, up-and-coming blogger (that’d be you).

Why should they respond to my email? What’s in it for them if they accept my pitch? Find this answer.

However, it doesn’t matter what you offer them if it violates the next rule…

Click me to share/pin the episode!

3 – Do not waste their time

Top entrepreneurs, bloggers, rockstars, celebrities, etc. do not care about you buying them coffee. They don’t care about the $5.

They care about their time.

Each second they spend reading your email OR doing something for you is a second away from their business and lives.

Do not waste their time. In the pitch email, cut out unnecessary words (like “that”), then cut the email in half. Go straight to the point, and drop as many formalities as possible.

Also, what are you pitching them? Will it eat up a bunch of their time? If so, they’re not likely to accept your offer.

If I had emailed Neil Patel with “hey Neil! I’d love to write you a guest post on Quicksprout. Want me to send you a rough draft and we can keep emailing back and forth for 3 weeks perfecting it?”

**Delete**

4 – Prove you’re legit

If there’s anything you can express in a 10-second email to prove you are worthy of their time…express it.

They want to see you have work ethic, previous success, or at least some measure of legitimacy.

Me? I namedrop my former podcast guests, which seems to impress people (guess they don’t know how lazy I really am).

Have a small business with 3 employees? Say that.

Get more than 35k pageviews a month? Say that.

Got a 15k email list? Say that.

Don’t have a dadgum thing? Say you’re an absolute hustler, and are going to work your tail off to get them [XYZ]. Then follow-through.

You must build trust quickly when reaching out to influencers. They need to know you’re worthy of their time and energy!

BONUS 4 – A step-by-step walkthrough of my Pinterest traffic strategy

Several of my recent podcast guests have been SUPER helpful to me in regards to driving traffic from Pinterest. Rosemarie, Michelle Schroeder, Eden Fried, and my Pinterest consultant Leah…they have all given such solid strategies and tactics.

It’s a decent amount of content, so I’ve split it up into a nicely formatted email course!

Hi! This was actually the first podcast I have ever listened to all the way to the end. It was full of useful and inspiring information and I really like how you brought the questions back to “how would a newbie” do this….since she has so much advanced level qualifications – just at the moment I thought “well, I have no qualifications for a group board” you piped in with the question “how does a newbie do this with nothing to offer.” I am a total newbie – only one blog post and I would love if you could do a podcast on how to develop great content – I think I saw one as I scrolled through y our list, but I will be listening to it next…..without content we have nothing…..the most discouraging thought as a new blogger is “how can I write something that (someone better at this than me) hasn’t written already.” I’m trying to start a travel blog and there are MILLIONS of more traveled folks than I. Just an idea for another podcast for you. Keep up the good work with your blog & podcasts!!!